Carradale Bay to Tarbert

The winds finally abated a bit and the morning was way nicer. The anchor had held well and the visibility had improved too. Quite an improvement - it almost felt like late September should. Yes, it was mid July but after this season up here we take any little breaks we can get. There was even a little sun on some of the Carradale Bay shore:

Our plan was a gentle run up to Tarbert and to hide there for a few days. Why? Well, because we have some friends who live in Portavadie which is opposite Tarbert and we hoped to see them. Also because the coming weekend was going to be miserable again and being close to a food shop and a few "facilities" would be handy.

Getting the anchor free was trickier than normal - we needed to drive over it and persuade it out of the seabed backwards: the strong winds overnight had really dug it in well. The good news was that it came up pretty clean this time. Must have been in a nice sandy spot. Leaving the bay you get to enjoy the rock patterns a little:

and out of the mist the Ailsa Craig rock appeared looking like a spooky pudding basin or small nuclear explosion:

and then vanished again. However, heading up the side of the Isle of Arran, things perked up:

The route was nice and simple:

but despite this, the crew seemed very focussed when doing a bit of helming:

We had our usual delay for a CalMac ferry, this time it was the one from Lochranza (Arran) that goes across to the mainland. It was being a bit illegal too - no AIS transmission from it. As we approached Loch Fyne we had to make a bit of a loop from the quickest route again, this time to give an oncoming freighter some space. They are the blue triangle on the plotter iamge:

Rare to see something this size coming down the loch unless it is a fish farm vessel:

and this guy is a general cargo ship. So, after giving him some sea-room we proceeded in gloomier and gloomier weather to Tarbert harbour. The hammerhead that we had been allocated had a huge fish farm vessel on it so a radio call got us an alternative spot. In need of a proper walk, we then tested out a new local cafe come bistro place just outside the village centre which might have been a mistake. How do you get skin on the milk of a flat white? And who serves squirty cream with a scone (especially as the strange coffee arrived way after the cakes and the cream had retreated to a little puddle that is hard to spread with a knife)? 

No matter, we loved being back here in the pretty harbour area. We also loved an impromptu visit by the friends from Portavadie who braved the CalMac ferry to join us. Several plus points about that. One was seeing them. The second was a rather good chocolate and Guinness cake in an alternative establishment and the third was seeing Penny, their little cavapoo who was sure that we must have some food for her on our table:

When longing looks from the table height failed, she tried the full on "see how cute and needy I am" look:

A most enjoyable day was spent catching up.

One drawback of our spot was that the CalMac ferry berthed directly opposite. In the mornings it likes starting the two engines (which are pretty noisy!) around 7:20am ready for a 7:45 departure. I know you are supposed to let big diesels warm up a bit but that seems overkill. So much for the well publicised "CalMac commitment to the environment":

The ferry is the oldest in the CalMac fleet (built in 1976) and has two very noisy retrofitted Scania engines.

Things in Tarbert ended up on a less active note when the crew hurt her back in the usual silly way - picking something up from the cabin floor. Two days of intensive exercises, cold packs, ibuprofen and red wine seemed to free things up again luckily and only delayed our departure a little.

Maintenance News:

Well, it had to be done. We launched the RIB and the captain gave the waterline of the hull a scrub. We had some weed starting to attach itself around the starboard side of the bow which had to go. The whole boat had a clean up and then the RIB had a little harbour trip to help its rather ignored battery. 

The captain (foolishly) tried to improve the fitting of the belt guards on the front of the engine. One bolt is particularly pesky - it is right underneath the damper and holds a bracket on the bottom of the metal cover for the small alternator belt and then goes through the bottom of the two plastic covers that protect the multi-V belt. Then it goes into a threaded bracket on the engine. Only they NEVER line up nicely and the thread in the bracket has seen better days. All attempts to change things around by putting a smaller bolt through from the top then fixing it in place with a nut so the covers could then be guided onto it one by one and another nut used to secure them failed. The shape of the plastic guard doesn't allow it to drop down far enough to go over even the shortest of captive bolts.

That was an hour of life that was completely wasted. Apart from the learning opportunity that is so if any other Lugger 1066T owners are thinking that approach is a good idea as we did - you have just got an extra hour of your life back to enjoy.